Book the First: Recalled to Life - Chapter I

The Period

IT WAS THE BEST of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

There were a king with a large jaw‚ and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw‚ and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.

It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-Lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock-Lane brood.

France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness downhill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that‚ rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that‚ in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather‚ that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrels of the Revolution. But‚ that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake was to be atheistical and traitorous.

In England there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies‚ took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers’ warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of “the Captain,” gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, “in consequence of the failure of his ammunition:” after which the mail was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles’s, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer’s boy of sixpence.

All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their divine rights with a high hand. Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures—the creatures of this chronicle among the rest—along the roads that lay before them.

Footnotes

  1. In other words, the hangman is constantly needed because of all the criminals who have been sentenced to hang. Dickens is again implying that the Enlightenment brought significant problems to Western European civilization.

    — Sarah, Owl Eyes Staff
  2. A Tale of Two Cities is set during the Enlightenment, a period marked by significant advances in science and technology. Religious faith and superstition were in decline, but social unrest (ranging from mugging to outright revolution) was becoming commonplace. Therefore, Dickens invites the reader to decide whether these changes are for the better.

    — Sarah, Owl Eyes Staff
  3. This sentence is an example of both anaphora and antithesis. Anaphora involves repeating a phrase at the beginning of successive clauses for rhetorical effect. Antithesis features the juxtaposition of opposite ideas (“it was the best… it was the worst…”) in a balanced or parallel construction.

    — Sarah, Owl Eyes Staff
  4. Dickens is making a tongue-in-cheek reference to the American colonists’ objection to King George and the British Parliament. He sarcastically implies that wars and political movements (such as the American Revolution that was taking place at the time of the novel) can allow us to predict the future far more accurately than ghosts and prophets.

    — Stephen Holliday
  5. A house on Cock-Lane (a street in Smithfield, which is a locality in Central London) was thought to be haunted by the spirit of a woman who may have been murdered nearby. The alleged haunting garnered a great deal of public attention because of unaccountable noises heard over the course of several months in 1762.

    — Stephen Holliday
  6. Dickens refers to King George III and Queen Charlotte Sophia, who, though originally from Hanover in Germany, ruled England during the time of the novel. Germans were often considered boorish and unattractive by the English, and neither George nor Charlotte escaped the stereotype. They are instead contrasted with the King and Queen of France (Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette), who are apparently more attractive.

    — Stephen Holliday
  7. The opening paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities is perhaps one of the most famous in English literature. The combination of parallelism, juxtaposition, and contrasting images Dickens employs accurately reflects the confusion and chaos of this time period in France.

    — Owl Eyes Reader
  8. Joanna Southcott (1750–1814) was an English woman who believed she was a religious prophetess as well as the woman in the biblical book of Revelations who will give birth to the Messiah.

    — Owl Eyes Reader
  9. The word "pincer" refers to a tool used to remove nails. The tool is made of two pieces of metal jaws that can grip and pull.

    — Owl Eyes Reader
  10. The word "requisition" refers to the act of being called to perform a duty.

    — Owl Eyes Reader
  11. Newgate was a large London prison which held many public executions during the time period of A Tale of Two Cities. Originally built in 1188, the prison was finally demolished in 1902.

    — Owl Eyes Reader
  12. Through this phrase, Dickens again references the King George III of England and King Louis XVI of France.

    — Owl Eyes Reader
  13. This phrase references Queen Charlotte of England and Queen Marie-Antoinette of France. Dickens continues the English stereotype that Germans are ugly and unattractive, calling Charlotte "plainer" than Marie-Antoinette.

    — Owl Eyes Reader
  14. Dickens refers to the "divine rights," a belief which states that the right to rule comes directly from God. Since rules were answerable to God, kings and queens were rarely questioned and anybody who disobeyed was in effect, violating God's commands. During the French Revolution, the belief in "divine rights" were abolished.

    — Owl Eyes Reader
  15. Throughout the novel, Dickens discusses fate and predetermination. He writes that the future of society is predetermined—a notion which is seemingly contradictory to reason-based thinking of the Enlightenment. This dichotomy will prove one of the major themes of the novel, as Dickens claims that fate arises out of social unrest.

    — Owl Eyes Reader